


A Figurative Storm

by merriell



Series: the forest children [3]
Category: Original Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-17
Updated: 2015-01-17
Packaged: 2018-03-07 22:37:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3185837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merriell/pseuds/merriell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>SWEDEN, 20XX. Daniel Haryawijaya, a guard of the Magical Creatures Conservation, was sleeping on a tree when his partner, the surveillance genius Malai Kadesayurat called him for guard duty. There were cracks on the barrier of the conservation. [Part of the Untitled Anthology made for Nanowrimo 2014.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Figurative Storm

The forest was full of life.

Gentle breeze swayed the branches when he opened his eyes. Far away, birds were chirping peacefully, their wings unseen to his eyes. There was a faint smell of burning in the otherwise fresh air, his sense of smelling teleporting his thoughts back at when he was sitting in the middle of his family’s living room, his mother burning _hio_ as the television displayed soap dramas that he never paid serious attention to.

His uniform sagged awkwardly around his small posture as he moved his feet until it was dangling in the air. His black eyes stared at the soil a few feet below. He saw a transparent butterfly settling on a poppy flower, still and quiet. A small movement in the bushes near sent it fluttering away, its clear wings flicking.

A figure appeared from the bushes, the same uniform wrapping her body. Her eyes were a clear brown, the color of honey lemon tea. She looked up at him, her lips tilted into a fierce frown. “Found you,” she knocked at the tree, glaring from below. “Come below. We’re on guard duty. What are you doing sleeping like that?”

“Malai, manisku,” he teased her in his native tongue, the way he loved to do. Raising his feet back to the branches, he sneered at her glaring eyes, leaning on the tree once again. He yawned as he folded his arms in front of his chest. “Let me sleep. I belong to a mager generation.”

“ _Dani_ ,” Malai’s tone was calm, but it was obvious by the way she slurred his name that she didn’t like his attitude one bit. She might’ve just spat it, but she was infused with common courtesies, years spent beneath the watchful eyes of society. _Women are meant to act this way, women are meant to act that way_. It was the same in every country, regardless what they say about their women. “I’ll report you to Miss Violet.”

“Oooh, I’m scared,” Dani closed his eyes.

It was a bad move. He felt small set of teeth enclosing in his arm. Dani opened his eyes to an instant, to see a sphere shaped things that looked like an eyeball but was the size of a tennis ball. The small runes engraved to it indicated that it was used for security purposes, for surveillance, its function alike to a small floating camera. He winced and shook it off, and his motion threw the golem a few meters away, but he knew he was lucky that he was wearing his guard uniform—otherwise a chunk of his own flesh would be ripped away just now.

“Mock me again and I’ll send a few to bite you in the ass,” Malai voice called to him. He rolled his eyes and jumped off the tree, his boot hitting the soil with a loud _thud_.

“You’re hard to be friends with,” he retorted.

“Speak for yourself,” Malai shrugged, indifferent. The golem fled to her shoulder, settling its claw on her shoulder, protective of its master. Malai has her own set of golems. They said she could maintain more than fifty at once, their consciousness mixing to her, and that was a specialty that gave her a way inside the Guards without any special offense skills. Most of her golems were used for surveillance, but she could use them like weapons with a flick of her fingers.

Dani opened a small foot-shaped lollipop (mango-flavored, one of his country’s snack that was sent by his ex by mail) and put it on his mouth. He sucked hard on it before shrugging his hands inside his pocket. He could still hear the birds chirping far away. “You’re not really going to snitch on me to Miss Violet, right?”

“You’re unfit for the work, with your laziness. Who wouldn’t tell on you?”

“ _Orang yang ga cepu_.” Dani scoffed, amused at the way Malai’s eyes sparkled with annoyance when she couldn’t understand his words. “C’mon, let’s get to work.”

They walked side by side down to the headquarters, passing the preserved creatures as they walked. When they arrived at the headquarters, another golem had find its way on Malai’s shoulder, while a Qur had settled on Dani’s goggles. Its crystal-like wings were still, and it let out a faint buzz, emitting honey-like aroma in the air. They picked up a box of protective charms from the supply room in silence, Malai too annoyed at him to be talking casually.

Her tone was business-like when one of the golems fled away from her shoulder and floated in the air, waiting for them to follow. “There’s a crack on Sector B, Section 7,” she told him without an expression. “We have to fix it quietly to avoid another leak. Geez. It was before of your incompetence that those gumihos got out.”

“Get over it,” Dani said as he waved away the little Qur from his goggles. It fled away, floating on the air peacefully, Dani’s disturbance of its calmness intelligible. Dani himself pressed his lips together as pulls his goggles down to his eyes. “Gumihos escape all the time. It’s our duty to shelter and protect them as long as they allowed us to. When they escape, they don’t want it. Gumiho likes civilization, not fucking trees…”

Malai sneered, her tone poison. “Suddenly the expert of gumiho? I thought your degree is nepotism.”

Dani would’ve given her the satisfaction of annoyed look, but he didn’t. He let her sneer and stepped away from the scene, Malai’s golem floating ahead of him, showing its way to where the leak was. As he passed hurriedly, hovering in his magically-modified boots, he attracted attention of creatures, their head flicking up to follow his motion as he passed them. He skidded into a halt when the golem stopped midair, noticing the edge of the conservation’s protective barrier in front of him.

Raising his goggles, Malai’s blue golem sat on his shoulder as he pulled out the box of protective charms. He frowned at the barrier, noticing odd cracks on an otherwise perfectly undisturbed environment. If a creature had bumped into the barrier and unconsciously disturbing the flow of the transparent wall with their energy, he would’ve seen the tracks in the soil. But there was nothing; the ground was undisturbed and the dried, fallen leaves only scattered because of the wind he made once he stopped before he hit the barrier.

A sigh puffed out of between his lips when he inserted the sphere like object to the cracks. When he pressed the blue-green colored marble, it dissolved, morphing the cracks until it looked like there hadn’t be cracks on the first place.

Once he fixed the cracks, he felt the golem on his shoulder nudging on his neck. It sent shiver down his spine; he hissed and turned, ready to zap it into nothing, not caring if he was risking Malai’s wrath, but it floated a few feet away before it stayed still in midair, the iris-like front part of it looked like it was staring at him. Dani stared back, a little confused by the odd gesture. Malai’s golem was unfriendly for him. Once he got the job done, they usually just fled away. But this one was staring at him, somehow warning him of the unsettling instinct on his gut.

There was a sound of bushes moving near where the golem was floating. His hand reached for the Fire charm on his foot, ready to attack whatever it was to unconsciousness, but a moment later he noticed that it was only Dyr, the magical counterpart of deer. Dyr was the sigil of the Magical Creatures Conservation. It was a delicate, respected creature; and it was believed that its presence was a sign of an incoming storm.

When the Dyr stepped closer, the golem landed on the top of its head. It was right then that Dani noticed that it was female. She seemed undisturbed by the blue golem on her head.

“Hey,” Dani muttered softly.

As if acknowledging his words, the Dyr made a movement that must’ve been a nod. She walked near the cracks Dani just fixed and snuggled its mouth to it, licking the barrier with her purple-colored tongue. This gesture gave Dani a pause.

“A storm coming?” he asked. The Dyr stopped licking the barrier and turned to him. Her milk-white eyes had no irises or pupils, but he knew the creature was staring at him, in a different way from what the golem did. The golem’s stare made him nervous. The Dyr’s stare sent an odd feeling of warmth to his stomach.

There was an odd, human-like feeling emitting from Dyr that reminded him of gumiho, who seemed to let out a human aura even when they weren’t wearing their human skin. His hand was raised, quite absently, reaching to touch the Dyr, but right then the golem jumped from the Dyr’s head to him, baring its fangs. Dani could recognize the faint buzz of incoming message from the blue golem. He grit his teeth as the Dyr ran away.

“ _Speak_ ,” he grumbles at Malai’s golem.

Malai’s voice sounded bored from the other side of the line. “ _You know, slowpoke, fixing barrier does_ not _require 20 minutes_.” Dani rolled his eyes in annoyance. “ _Get your sorry ass over here, will you? I need you to check on something_.”

“Little Miss Perfect finally got over my so-called nepotism and she even _needs_ me?”

“ _Just get your ass over here. Your eyes are too valuable for me to hate the rest of your being_.” The golem tinged, indicating the end of the line, tilting its body to the right like a dog. Dani gestured for it to land on his shoulder before stepping hard at his right foot. As his boots left the ground, he hovered again straight to the headquarters, his mind still clouded from his encounter with the Dyr.

Malai was waiting for him on the front of the headquarters, munching a candy that might be native to Thailand—or not, who knows with her. She looked up when Dani stopped and landed on the ground, scowl edging on her lips. “What’s up?” Dani shrugged, pointedly ignoring the scowl. The golem on his shoulder jumped away from him to her shoulder, though its eyes peered at him a beat too long, and Dani remembered the moment they shared with the Dyr.

“It shouldn’t take that long for you to go from B-7 to here. Were you doing something suspicious?” She rolled her eyes at his absent-minded green and tapped at the transparent tablet in her hand. The blue golem snuggled closer to her neck. “If one of my golems find you doing something even remotely suspicious, I’m hauling your ass to Miss Violet in 30 seconds.”

“ _Bacot ah_ ,” Dani scowled back right at her. The edge of her lip twitched at the unfamiliar remark. “You’ve no right to say that when you spend half the day sitting on headquarters and not trying to avoid a herd of creatures that _might_ kill you or branches that might hurt your face. _My_ pretty face.” He settled on the empty wall beside her, peering over her shoulder to see what she was scowling at. “Miss Violet always say _safety first, safety first_. I happen to prioritize the safety of my pretty face.”

The girl let out a loud scoff. “Then you don’t have to be too concerned, don’t you?” The remark fell on his feet, his easy demeanor unmarred. His mother, after his late father died and his first love dumped him without any actual reasons, told him that what other people think was other people’s, the one he had to mind was his.

“Just tell me what’s wrong.”

“There’s sudden cracks on various places appearing at once, and it has a huge gap. But every single one of it appeared in the same exact moment.” Her pointer finger touched the screen, where red dots appeared on the various place in the barrier, the gap more or less the same with each other. “A few I can handle enough to call coincidence, but these are far more than that. This was planned and intentional. Should we call backups?”

The vision of the Dyr’s delicate skin beneath his hand attacked him. The small flicker of memory made him pause. _Dyr sightings always indicate an incoming storm_. He was a product of nepotism, yes, but in the matters of creatures, he was well-knowledgeable enough; he was well-educated enough. After all he spent his childhood reading his mother’s creature books, thinking it was a fairy tale picture books from the drawings inside it. He remembered being enchanted with magical creatures before he even saw the first one with his own eyes.

But he didn’t say anything about Dyr. He shrugged. “Sure, you can call backups, but at the same time if it proved to be nothing, you’ll probably get a point for a prank call.”

“You don’t get a point for prank calls, you get ten.”

Dani rolled his eyes with such intensity that even Malai glance at him, feeling the hint of annoyance emitting from his aura. “ _Apa kata lo aja deh,_ ” he grumbled darkly. “Anyway, do you want me to check the barrier or not? It won’t take five minutes to fix each.”

“Yet you always disappear for a day every time you get a task of fixing the barriers.”

“I always happen to found a Dreamlurer and fell asleep on a tree somewhere.”

“Yeah, right,” Malai shot a glare from above her tablet, who was now beeping in warning. “C’mon, we have to check this. And I’m coming with you. I don’t fucking trust you with important task.”

And that was why they was hovering beside each other, flicking through branches with small teleportation charms, avoiding herd of creatures that might hurt them once they get into their line of sight. When they arrived at the first one it looked fine; Dani did his usual procedures with ease, pointedly ignoring Malai’s annoying sounds of protest behind him.

They repeated the process until they were halfway done. Malai was staring at her tablet while leaning on a tree somewhere, the golem in her shoulder looking at the same spot she was looking. Dani was pressing the protection charm to the cracks, miserably glancing at the few charms he had left in the box he was carrying—which meant he had to burden himself with the trouble of creating it again, which was too tiring for him, when Malai let out an intelligible curse in her own native tongue (a rarity, Dani noted).

“Fuck. We’re definitely short of people. _Look_ ,” her tone was full of urgency when Dani stepped closer to look; she shoved the tablet to his face until he had to step a foot away to avoid getting hit in the face. “They’re cracking the places we fixed. We have to call up the sleeping guards. _Now_. This is Code Yellow.”

Dani thought that he should’ve just told her about the Dyr, but instead he just shrugged and nodded, indifferent. “Whatever. Let’s go.” He kicked at the ground to start up the hovering function of his boots, Malai repeating after him. He dashed ahead of her, though he couldn’t care less about the cracks. It was probably just a coincidence, the charms half-cooked and bad. Whoever creating the charms had poor calculations of the ingredients.

When they stopped at the headquarters, Malai hurried to the dorms while Dani lingered at the front, staring at the way the breeze swayed the skeleton-like branches. He stayed there until Malai let out a shriek. Instinctively, he dashed upstairs with his hoverboots, even though he knew there was a code of safety that indicated that it was not for indoor use. He couldn’t care, the boots were faster than his own feet.

Malai was punching a guard’s chest when he fled in. She looked up at him, her face paled for a moment before it turned into a beet red. At least she had the decency to feel embarrassed.

“I can’t wake any of them up,” she said, frustration brimming into her usual patience.

Dani sighed and pulled out a summoning and fire charm from both sides of his feet; he combined together and in a puff of smoke, his poor copy of golem appeared. The form wasn’t even completely round. It was the poor man’s golem. Well, he had never been great at creating things, always getting a score below his minimum grade in art class. He gestured the golem to the glass of water on the bedside table; the thing let out his thin tongue, licking the liquid before dropping down straight into the glass.

“Well, sleeping medicine.”

“We should call Miss Violet,” Malai said.

Dani shrugged. Maybe he _really_ should’ve told her about the Dyr. “You go ahead and do that.”

As she angrily walked to the office part of the headquarters, Dani stayed there, still floating in the air. He glanced at his sleeping comrades, frowning. Well, someone with nepotism sticking at the end of his name at least didn’t fall for a sleeping medicine. Scoffing in amusement, he pulled off the pillows quickly from beneath their heads. He pulled off the covers and dashed to the supply rooms, almost hitting the big photograph that displayed the Employee of the Month.

Malai found him ten minutes later, sprawled in front of the supply room, a big chest of fire charms beside him, a bucket of lighter fluid in front of him and pillow covers in the other side. “I’ve called Miss Violet and she said she’ll send something over in ten minu… wait, what the fuck are you doing?”

He didn’t answer the question; he only dyed the covers with the lighter fluid before filling it with the fire charms.

“How is a pillow cover filled with fire charms gonna help our situation?”

“I plan to have a pillow fight with them, obviously.” Dani deadpanned without looking up at her. She settled to sitting beside him, frowning at the fire charms-filled pillows. “Gez, Malai, can’t you think by yourself? I think it’s pretty obvious what I’m going to do with these things.”

“Pillow fights?”

“Fuck you.”

“It looks like a pillow fight,” she teased, but she grabbed a pillow cover and dunked it on the bucket, filling it with the fire charms right after. They worked in silence after that, no sign of annoyance flying from any of their mouth. It was almost awkward, how the silence seeped into the air until it was normal, and the last of the pillows were wet with lighter fluid and filled with fire charms. Dani wiped sweat from his forehead and looked at Malai at last, who was listening to her golem’s whispering on her ear.

“7-B is completely open,” she said, “Isn’t that where you went the first time?”

Dani’s thought once again fled to his encounter with the Dyr, but Malai glared at him, waiting for his answer. He nodded and pulled out a levitating charm; he cracked it on his hand and levitated half the pillows up. The other half was handled by Malai, who summoned two modified golems, larger than any of hers that was usually used for surveillance. The red and orange golems lifted two each, and it was ten seconds later that they dashed towards the opening, Dani almost hitting a tree when Malai gave a signal for him to stop.

Stopping ten meters away from the barrier, Malai nudged her head to the trees, and Dani nodded back at her before climbing up to the tree with an astounding agility. Usually Malai would’ve insulted him by calling him alike of a monkey, but at that time she only frowned as she pressed her body into the tree.

From above, Dani could see the area where the barrier was completely opened. Shards of the charms that wasn’t quite absorbed yet was scattered on the ground in a manner of a broken glass. He could make out a group of people with hooded figures, a mask pulled up against their mouths. They were talking in a language that he couldn’t understand—he glanced down at Malai, who was still listening closely, the golems floating behind her.

“ _Ssh_ —“ he was almost startled by the sound from behind his back before he noticed that it was only Malai’s golem, the blue one that accompany him on his encounter with Dyr. Malai’s voice came out from it, hushed and whispered. “ _Hey. Get ready to throw these pillows to those people. On my mark_ …”

But he rolled his eyes, gestured the pillows closer before throwing it to the direction of the hooded figures. Behind him, the golem let out an exasperated sound. The hooded figures looked up the instant the pillow landed on the ground with a loud sound of cracking. Dani hissed and pressed himself to the tree when the pillow exploded, sending bits of fire everywhere. Malai’s golem was sent away in the impact—but it returned again and hit Dani square in the forehead, hissing, “ _Miss Violet is going to fucking suspend us_.”

“Who the fuck cares when some people are breaching her conservation,” he snapped at the golem angrily before he could prevent himself, his voice ringing in the still silence that filled the air after the blast. A coldness ran down his spine. _Shit_. He felt the glare the golem was piercing to him; he looked at his boots and was just going to move it when someone yanked him down to the ground with a loud _thud_.

His vision was swimming, his head ringing when he felt a shoe pressed on his chest. Once his vision stabilized he noticed how expensive the shoe was—and he looked up to see the tallest from all the hooded figures looking down at here from his mask, sending shiver against his body.

The tallest one hissed, his accent sounding familiar when he slurred, “ _You_. People are supposed to be asleep.”

Dani tried a huge grin instinctively, even though it might have still came off as pathetic. But he maintained it fixed on his lips, ignoring the pain at his head and the pressure in his chest. “Maybe I’m not a person,” he answered lightly, in a mocking tone. The figure who had his shoe pressed against Dani’s chest tilted his head to the right, actually considering. People with knowledge of what being preserved inside this place knew that there were various creatures that used human skin as a disguise, like gumiho.

“You are, though. That was a fire charm. There was a snub charm that hit my face.” The tallest one pulled out the red, round object that Dani recognized as one of the fire charms. Of course there was bound to be snubs; it was made by people after all, and most of them had no means of perfection. Either too lazy or too indifferent.

“There’s a lot of creatures who can use magical items made by people, you know,” Dani lied straight through his teeth.

The intruder took a glance at his uniform, his eyes falling on the sigil on Dani’s right chest. It always looked like a normal deer rather than a Dyr because the symbol was a mere silhouette rather than an intricate, detailed drawing, but anyone who’ve seen a Dyr could tell the differences; anyone who was educated in magical creatures could tell the difference.

“Are you sure you’re qualified for this job? Your uniform’s legit but your knowledge certainly isn’t.”

“Ooh, you got me. I got in because of nepotism,” Dani rolled his eyes. He knew what he said wasn’t true—he was only trying to knock the intruder off guard—but it certainly didn’t work. This person has knowledge on magical creatures, he realized. “I’m Violet Skarsgard’s nephew. So, nepotism.”

“You look Asian,” he said.

“We’re not blood related.” This one wasn’t a lie; this was the source of Malai’s dislike of him. He got in because he was recommended. His uncle was Violet Skarsgard’s lover, and when Dani wanted to get out of Indonesia as soon as possible, his uncle was kind enough to personally ask Violet to give him a job. He gave him a place as a guard in a conservation that was known to be hard to get in. in fact, he was hated by pretty much every guards and every scientists in the conservation. At least Malai had the initiative to talk to him.

The man gave him a quick once-over before asking. “Is there any person around here beside you?”

“Ohh, most of them are asleep. _Tapi kalo yang itu lo juga udah tahu_.”

“What?!” The man’s eyebrows furrow in anger when Dani’s, quick Indonesian words flew from his mouth; Dani’s lips twitched into a small smile as he remembered his friend who was still hiding behind the trees. His hand was still stained with levitation charm—he raised in the air, feeling strings of objects below his fingers, and he took off the man’s mask by force with a single flick of his hand. The man shrieked and moved away from him.

Dani quickly got up and yelled, “ _Malai_!” while still looking at the man, who was looking at him with something that could only be explained as disdain, his features Asian. His lips thin and eyes hooded. “Now, fuck’s sake!”

Something hit him in the back of his head and he knew for once it was the golem. The two others golem, the bigger ones, jumped from the trees, dropping pillows on the ground, separating Dani with the hooded figures. The man—the unmasked one—stared at the golems with lips pressed, before he looked at Dani again while muttering some familiar words that Dani couldn’t catch.

“ _Get out of there_ ,” Malai’s vaguely annoyed voice came out of the golem and Dani jumped away from there, and then the pillows exploded.

 

*

 

He woke up in the headquarters, laying sprawled in a very unflattering posture in the living room’s couch. There was a smell of both something burning and bacons in the air. Sitting up, his hand reached for his hair, feeling grease on the strands. Yawning, he got up from the living room to check the kitchen, where he saw a girl cooking bacons on the pan.

“I smell something burning,” Dani said as he yawned again. For some reason he was super sleepy.

“That’s not me,” he heard Malai answering, her voice lacking the qualities of annoyance. “I’m pretty sure that comes from your hair?”

“ _What_?!” Before Malai could answer, Dani dashed to the bathroom, knocking over a clock on the living room’s desk while doing so. He stopped in the front of the mirror, and he could see the edges of his hair being burnt black. He whined as he reached for the scissors and cut it. How dreadful. And he was supposed to meet Amiyandra and Aksa next week, using his rotation to get out of the conservation.

On the way he went back to the kitchen, ten minutes later, he picked up the clock he had knocked over as he did. Malai was serving the bacons on the plate as he did. Dani could see the rice cooker cooking (they were one of the few people in the place that eat rice daily) when he sat on the chair, watching as Malai poured some orange juice. “How long have I been asleep?”

“An hour or so.”

“Allah.” He rolled his eyes. “Hey, Little Miss Perfect, you’re wearing a watch right? Give me the time…”

“12:14.”

Dani pressed his lips as he noticed something from the watch. _Wednesday_. He adjusted the time until it was perfect. “I’m going to put this back,” he said, and Malai gave an intelligible _mmhm_ as he got up and came back to the desk. Wednesday. He looked at the employee of the month poster that was hung on the living room’s wall, which is also doubled with schedules. He traced the name with his fingers, Sunday, Monday, Thursday. Sunday, Monday, Wednesday.

 _We’re on guard duty_.

He sat back on the same chair he sat on just a minute ago, but right then Malai was already eating her share of bacon. Dani smiled at her as he reached down to the last fire charm hidden on his thigh, still smiling at Malai. Malai scoffed at his face.

“You know, next weekend Ami and Aksa is visiting me.”

“Really? The ones who broke your heart?”

“Yes.”

“You’re stupid for meeting them.”

“That’s why. I might have to take a raincheck.” Dani chuckled a little. “Is there a piece of bread somewhere?”

“You and your inability to get over Amiyandra. It actually astounds me,” Malai retorted as she bit a piece of bacon. While she chewed the meat in her mouth, she nudged at the shelves behind her. Dani got up and walked there while she ate, hand still clutching the fire charm he had pulled out of his boots. The bread was located in the top shelves, and he had to tiptoe on his toes to reach it, he noticed.

“Where’s the team Miss Violet said she is sending to us? I don’t see them anywhere.” Dani asked nonchalantly as he reached for the white bread, who was already cut for anyone’s convenience. He also put out a jar of Nutella, his favorite thing to eat beside roasted duck. “You know, after that kind of things, you’d figure they’d ask me some things, considering I’ve seen one of the dude’s face.”

“You did?”

Sunday, Monday, Thursday.

“Yep, I did. Took of the freaking mask with the levitating charm in my hand, figured it was possible with the way he was stepping on my chest.” He spread the Nutella quite evenly with his left hand, his right hand still occupied with the fire charm. He had to really try to not accidentally drop his only chance for truth here. “And did you hear what they said? I can’t understand the language, but it’s awfully familiar.”

“It’s Thai,” Malai deadpanned. He heard her putting down the fork on the plate, and he also put down the bread knife he was holding, right hand clutching on the fire charm so tightly he could feel the runes digging on his skin. “Hey, Dan. You know I know you’re not a leftie, right?”

Those words made him turn. He threw the fire charm on the direction of Malai; one of her golem swallowed it and fled away, the blast contained inside the magical-enhanced skin. He flinched, ready to pull another charm—not fire charm, but something else he could throw—from his thighs, but Malai had her hand around a frying pan and she hit the side of Dani’s head with it, sending him sprawled on the ground, his ears ringing from the impact.

Weirdly, his first thought was _Auntie is going to kill me_.

As he lied on the ground, his vision swinging, he saw Malai stepping hard on the boots before muttering something—was it _I’m sorry?_ He couldn’t tell with the way his ears were ringing. He tried to get up, but she already dashed away, so quick he knew he couldn’t catch her. No—it would probably make all the things worse, with his head just hit like that. He’d bump to a tree and get a concussion.

 _We have guard duty_.

Sunday, Monday, Thursday. Sunday, Monday, Wednesday.

He sighed heavily as he pressed his forehead on the floor.

 

*

 

It took him ten hours for him to get Miss Violet to come. Someone—he figured it was Malai, who had been doing it via the golems—had cut down the phone lines so no one could get a call out. He was still pressing a frozen meat used to feed one of the carnivore creatures to where Malai had hit him with a frying pan that now he put on the dining table. As he sat on the kitchen’s window, waiting for someone to come, his eyes were fixed on the frying pan, wondering how he let on the obvious mistakes and irregularities.

Miss Violet had a fifteen-inch wedges on her feet when she walked in, all swagger and some kind of delicate gestures that seemed so natural. Dani looked up from the frying pan to her, her in her branded fur coat and a small frown on his face. Somewhere from inside him Dani got the feeling that he never, ever want to disappoint this person, no matter that what had happened was out of his control and none of his fault. After all he had no idea someone—Malai, he kept correcting himself—had drugged all the guards and distracted him completely.

He wondered why he kept letting Malai’s name out of his mind and refer the culprit as someone he didn’t know. Despite the things they said to each other, all the “you and your nepotism,” all the “I hate your condescending words”, he had to admit that he liked the girl. She was the most interesting person in all the guards in the conservation, and the most important thing, she reminded him of Amiyandra. He knew this was bad, but their fierceness was the same. Amiyandra was a bit more emotional, though; Malai was more practical than her, with her harshness.

And he loved Amiyandra. He only liked Malai.

“Hey, Daniel,” she greeted him. She walked closer and lifted up his chin to take a good look at where the frying pan had hit him hard. Dani could feel it beating in pain. “Coo, you poor boy. Have you taken care of your injuries just yet? Did you collectively forget something because she hit you in the head?”

“No,” he shook off the hand and the concern, and went back to pressing frozen meat against the beating wound. “Everyone is already awake and fixing the barriers. But a few of the creatures had gotten loose or taken away. I’m so sorry, Miss. I should’ve been more careful. You’re kind enough to let me in despite having nothing that would be beneficial to this place and now I’ve disappointed you.”

“Hush, don’t worry too much, boy. I’m sure it’ll be taken care off as soon as possible.” She smiled a thin smile that made him shiver. It was a promise rather than a reassuring sentence. “I’m here to ask you some questions, though. You said that that girl, Malai, was the one who let them in. What exactly are them, really? What do they look like? What do they represent? Are they some kind of terrorist group whose goals are to destroy our dearest conservation?”

“I don’t know. I just know that they’re wearing robes and hoods that cover their face and I’ve seen one of the lot’s face and—I think I can get a sketch if you give me an artist. It just happened so fast, and…” Dani trailed off to silence. Suddenly he thought of the Dyr and remembered how much he wanted to tell Malai about it, and what a pity that he didn’t get any chance to do so at the end. He got the same feeling when he looked at Miss Violet. Hesitantly, he steered the topic aside instead. “You know, I have an encounter with a Dyr earlier.”

An eyebrow raised up. Miss Violet was probably interested in that. The Dyr, despite being the pride and joy of the conservation, after all, didn’t show their horns that often. Unless a storm is coming. And Dani had to admit that mythos was real. A storm did come, although not literally. But it was a storm nevertheless.

“You saw a Dyr. Impressive.” Miss Violet remarked. “I don’t suppose it tried to talk to you? Or do anything that might be reminiscent to human contact?”

“What?” Dani was confused by the questions. He shake his head. “No. No. Nothing like that, really. I just had an urge to touch it but Malai’s golem went off just before I can touch it. It—she—she was eating grass, just minding her own business.”

“How do you know it’s a she?”

Dani frowned at Miss Violet’s face, and shrugged. “It looked like a she.”

“Huh,” she remarked, nodding slowly like she was processing the information inside her brain, and it took longer time than she thought it will be. “When was this, if I may ask? Was this before the mess happened?”

“I guess it was before the mess happened, but if you count the timeline where Malai drugged the guards to sleep, I guess it was more like _during_. I think. I didn’t understand much why she showed up to me, really, and before I can touch her Malai called me so… I didn’t really know why she just showed up out of the blue. It’s very unusual, I gathered?”

“Unusual isn’t the right word.”

“…I see.”

From her pocket, Miss Violet pulled out a little vial. It was the size of Dani’s thumb, and inside was a clear liquid, something akin to water, but if you looked closely, glow a bit like someone had ran a flashlight through it. She grabbed Dani’s hand so it was outstretched and put it on his hand, while he only stared confusedly at it, unsure of what its uses and what he was supposed to do with it.

Back in Indonesia potions were a little bit uncommon after all, unless you took the Western Magic course, or any course that had potion inside it. _Kemenyan_ was the extent of their jam.

“It’s for your head. Healing potion,” Miss Violet explained hurriedly. “Now, I want you to promise me something, boy. If you had find yourself meeting a Dyr again, I want you to report on me, directly. I don’t care if I’m in a meeting with the president of the United States or the head of the United Nations. You talk to me. Quick. Just tell me, or my assistant, the words and I would be of service in a flash.”

“Wait. Why is this Dyr that important?”

“It just is.”

The tone signed the end of the conversation. Dani still wanted to talk, but Miss Violet showed an edged smile at him and already walked away, presumably to supervise the repairs of the barrier. He stared at the potion at his hand and remembered Malai’s smiling face; then, he pocketed the potion on his clothes and went back to pressing the wounded part of his face with the frozen meat.


End file.
